In Review: Lucy Dacus Forever Is A Feeling, Alison Krauss & Union Station Arcadia, Branford Marsalis Belonging
Plus, Destroyer's Dan's Boogie and Kip Moore's Solitary Tracks.
Lucy Dacus—Forever Is A Feeling [2025]
It's not fair to call Forever Is A Feeling a sequel to The Record, the 2023 album that elevated the three members of Boygenius from indie sensations to (relative) rock stars yet this Lucy Dacus record—her first solo album since 2021's Home Video—nevertheless feels like the kind of album a musician makes after winning three Grammys. It's soft and welcoming, not so much a bid at a crossover audience as a reflection of her elevated status; she's now on a major label, collaborating with Blake Mills, inviting both Bartees Strange and Madison Cunningham to work on the same song, and duetting with Hozier. Of those musicians, Mills has the largest presence here, playing on nearly every track, helping Dacus weave a tapestry that feels as comforting as a quilt. Forever Is a Feeling is so cozy it can be easy to overlook its intentional blemishes and off-center arrangements, particularly because Dacus retains her signature sense of intimacy, delivering her songs with the hushed intensity of a midnight confession. Her earnestness provides a necessary counterpoint to music that deliberately never seems urgent. Forever Is A Feeling drifts and floats, lingering upon moments of quiet reflection and contentment. It's a long way from the barbed immediacy of The Record, let alone No Burden, but this isn't fussy or stuffy: its mellow sway feels reassuring and earned.
Branford Marsalis Quartet—Belonging [2025]
Branford Marsalis makes the leap to Blue Note by revisiting Keith Jarrett's Belonging—an album best known to pop and rock fans as the home of "'Long As You Know You're Living Yours," the song that inspired Steely Dan's "Gaucho" (after a lawsuit, Jarrett was credited as a co-composer)—in its entirety. Where Jarrett's original was a new beginning for Jarrett